If the harvest is plentiful, thank God for horses

Why would you give a volunteer access to church data?

There’s a few things to think about before you give people access to contact details and other data.

You’re not giving them access, you’re appointing them with responsibility.
There are certain things people should do, and not do with private data. Access to data is not a right or a gift to use as they see fit. It’s a weighty responsibility they have to choose to take on. (We have volunteers sign a database privacy policy).

If you’re appointing someone to a position of significant authority, it’s appropriate they have access to data.
They might not need access to the database to fulfil their responsibilities, but the very fact they already have such responsibility means that access is appropriate. For example, our senior pastor rarely uses the database to do his job, but he has access.

If someone’s smaller roll would be much, much easier with access to data, its loving to let them have it.
There’s no point asking someone to organise a person from every growth group to be a contact person for a particular event, and then telling them they’ve got to find all those people the selves, or bounce that administrative hassle back to the growth group over seers. Administrators are great people to give access to the database.